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Agent skill

Academic Slides

by EvoScientist in EvoScientist/EvoSkills

A skill your agent uses for creating or refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk, thesis defense, lab meeting, or paper-to-slides deck; deciding…

Apache-2.0Auto-check passedDocuments & Office

Install Academic Slides

skills CLI
$ npx skills add EvoScientist/EvoSkills --skill academic-slides -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install EvoScientist/EvoSkills academic-slides --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/EvoScientist/EvoSkills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/academic-slides .claude/skills/academic-slides && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
academic-slides
GitHub stars
476
Used in
2 other repos
Token cost
~1.8k tokens
SKILL.md length
770 words
Files
7 (incl. references, assets)
Skills in repo
16
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

A skill your agent uses for creating or refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk, thesis defense, lab meeting, or paper-to-slides deck; deciding…

  • Works in 11 steps: Define Scope and Audience → Draft Narrative Arc → Design Slide Structure → …
  • Refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk
  • SKILL.md covers When to Use This Skill, Before You Start: Three…, Core Workflow and Artifact Sources from Other…, plus 2 more sections
  • Calls pip

What it does

Academic Slides is an agent skill from EvoScientist/EvoSkills. Use this skill for creating or refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk, thesis defense, lab meeting, or paper-to-slides deck; deciding the narrative arc and slide breakdown; improving slide design and visual hierarchy; planning rehearsal, timing, Q&A, and backup slides; or generating the .pptx. Reach for it when the user is shaping the presentation itself. Do not use for writing the paper, producing standalone speaker notes/scripts/transcripts, making posters…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.8k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 8 other files, including reference files and assets (for example `assets/talk-outline-template.md`, `references/delivery-and-qa.md` and `references/slide-creation.md`).

It sits in Documents & Office, covering Slides and decks. It works with Microsoft PowerPoint. The repository describes itself as: 🧬 Extend EvoScientist with Installable Skill & Knowledge Packs. The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • Refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk
  • Paper-to-slides deck
  • Deciding the narrative arc and slide breakdown
  • Improving slide design and visual hierarchy

Example prompts

  • “/academic-slides”

Requirements

  • Python 3
  • Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): write_file, edit_file, read_file, think_tool, execute

Workflow steps

11 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Define Scope and Audience
  2. Draft Narrative Arc
  3. Design Slide Structure
  4. Create Individual Slides
  5. Build the .pptx File
  6. Rehearse and Time
  7. Prepare Backup Slides
  8. Your slides are not your paper
  9. Reading and listening compete
  10. Enthusiasm > polish
  11. Related work is not citation duty

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 9a9f8cf. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

    • write_file
    • edit_file
    • read_file
    • think_tool
    • execute

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • pip

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use pip, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Academic Slides loads about 1.8k tokens when it runs, and up to ~11k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 157 tokens; SKILL.md has 770 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~157
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.8k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~11k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from EvoScientist/EvoSkills at commit 9a9f8cf, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© EvoScientist). 770 words, ~1,784 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/academic-slides/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 6 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
academic-slides
description
Use this skill for creating or refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk, thesis defense, lab meeting, or paper-to-slides deck; deciding the narrative arc and slide breakdown; improving slide design and visual hierarchy; planning rehearsal, timing, Q&A, and backup slides; or generating the .pptx. Reach for it when the user is shaping the presentation itself. Do not use for writing the paper, producing standalone speaker notes/scripts/transcripts, making posters, creating isolated figures/charts outside a slide deck, or building non-academic presentations.
allowed-tools
write_file, edit_file, read_file, think_tool, execute
metadata.author
EvoScientist
metadata.version
1.0.2
metadata.tags
core, writing, presentation, academic-writing

Academic Slides

A structured approach to creating academic presentation slides and preparing research talks. Covers narrative structure, slide design, visual hierarchy, delivery technique, and Q&A preparation.

When to Use This Skill

  • User wants to create presentation slides for a research talk
  • User asks about structuring an academic presentation
  • User needs to prepare for a conference talk, thesis defense, or lab meeting
  • User wants to design a slide deck from a paper or research project
  • User mentions "slides", "presentation", "talk", "defense", "poster talk"

Before You Start: Three Questions

Before designing any slides, answer these questions clearly:

  1. What works are you presenting? They must share a coherent research direction. If presenting multiple works, they should form a narrative arc — not a disconnected list.

  2. What problems do these works solve in that direction? Each work should map to a specific problem. If you cannot articulate the problem in one sentence, you are not ready to present.

  3. How do you use related work to naturally introduce these problems? Related work is not citation duty. It builds the motivation for YOUR problem. Each related work you mention should advance the audience toward understanding why your approach is needed.

Core Workflow

Step 1: Define scope and audience
Step 2: Draft narrative arc (outline)
Step 3: Design slide structure (section breakdown)
Step 4: Create individual slides (one idea per slide)
Step 5: Build the .pptx file (layouts, figures, charts, QA)
Step 6: Rehearse and time
Step 7: Prepare backup slides (for Q&A)
Step 1: Define Scope and Audience
AudienceAdjust
Domain expertsSkip basics, go deep on method and results
Broad CS / engineeringExplain task context, moderate technical depth
InterdisciplinaryStart from the application, minimize jargon
IndustryLead with impact and demo, light on theory

Rule of thumb: Duration in minutes = approximate slide count. A 20-minute talk needs about 20 slides.

Step 2: Draft Narrative Arc

Use the outline template at assets/talk-outline-template.md to plan your talk before making any slides. The outline forces you to articulate your key takeaway and narrative arc.

Step 3: Design Slide Structure

Break your outline into sections with claim-style headers. See talk-structure.md for two complete talk structures and section-by-section guidance.

Step 4: Create Individual Slides

One idea per slide. Follow the 10 design rules in slide-design.md for visual hierarchy and layout.

Step 5: Build the .pptx File

Use slide-creation.md for practical .pptx creation — color palettes, layout code, charts, tables, figures, and QA workflow.

Dependencies: pip install "markitdown[pptx]" pillow (also listed in requirements.txt at the skill root) for text extraction and QA, plus the Node packages named in the Setup section of slide-creation.md. Install into the environment the user is working in.

Step 6: Rehearse and Time

See references/delivery-and-qa.md for the rehearsal protocol, delivery principles, and Q&A preparation.

Step 7: Prepare Backup Slides

Backup slides go after your "Thank You" slide. They are not part of the talk — they are your safety net for Q&A:

  • Full quantitative comparison table
  • Failure cases (shows honesty and preparation)
  • Additional ablations or analysis
  • Slides addressing anticipated tough questions
Show full SKILL.md (316 more words)Show less

Artifact Sources from Other Skills

If you used other EvoSkills earlier in the pipeline, pull these artifacts directly:

Source SkillArtifactUse In Slides
paper-planningStory summary (task → challenge → insight)Motivation slides
paper-planningPipeline figure sketchMethod overview slide
paper-planningExperiment planResults structure
paper-writingFinalized figures and tablesMethod + results slides
paper-reviewAnticipated reviewer concernsBackup Q&A slides

See slide-creation.md for detailed layout patterns using each artifact.

Counterintuitive Presentation Rules

For the 10 design rules (one idea per slide, claim-style titles, max 6 elements, etc.), see slide-design.md. The rules below are higher-level mindset shifts.

1. Your slides are not your paper

A talk is an advertisement, not a lecture. Your goal is to make the audience interested enough to read the paper. Cut 80% of your paper's content. If someone can reconstruct your paper from your slides alone, your slides have too much.

2. Reading and listening compete

Text-heavy slides force the audience to choose between reading your slides and listening to you. They will read — and stop hearing you. When you put text on a slide, you are choosing to be ignored.

3. Enthusiasm > polish

A passionate speaker with rough slides beats a bored speaker with beautiful slides. The audience remembers your energy and clarity, not your color scheme. If you only have time to improve one thing, rehearse more — don't redesign slides.

Use related work to BUILD your problem motivation, not to show you have read papers. Each related work slide should advance the narrative: "This approach solved X, but Y remains open — which is exactly what we address."

Reference Navigation

TopicReference FileWhen to Use
Talk structurestalk-structure.mdOrganizing the narrative arc
Slide designslide-design.mdVisual design and layout rules
Slide creationslide-creation.mdBuilding .pptx files with code
Delivery and Q&Adelivery-and-qa.mdRehearsal, timing, Q&A preparation
Talk outline templatetalk-outline-template.mdStarting a new presentation

© EvoScientist, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 6 other files (references, assets) in skills/academic-slides of EvoScientist/EvoSkills.

  • SKILL.md
  • assets/talk-outline-template.md
  • references/delivery-and-qa.md
  • references/slide-creation.md
  • references/slide-design.md
  • references/talk-structure.md
  • requirements.txt

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 9a9f8cf

Used in 2 other repositories

We found 2 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 2 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in EvoScientist/EvoSkills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

Compare with similar skills

Academic Slides next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Academic Slides compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Academic Slides this skillEvoScientist/EvoSkills4762 repos~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Academic PresentationsGabberflast/academic-pptx-skill1.1k1 repos~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassProprietary
Xiaobei Skill Academic Paper To Pptxiao24bei/xiaobei-skill584—~4.4kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Paper2slidesQuZhan51496/paper2anything469—~3.8kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
BeamerNoi1r/beamer-skill364—~13kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Academic Slide Pragmatic Fallbackfangyuanopus/literature-report-ppt-builder110—~1.7kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Academic Slides

What does Academic Slides do?

A skill your agent uses for creating or refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk, thesis defense, lab meeting, or paper-to-slides deck; deciding…. Academic Slides is an agent skill from EvoScientist/EvoSkills.pptx.

When should I use Academic Slides?

Academic Slides fits situations like: refining an academic slide deck and the talk built around it: structuring a conference talk; paper-to-slides deck; deciding the narrative arc and slide breakdown; improving slide design and visual hierarchy.

How do I install Academic Slides in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add EvoScientist/EvoSkills --skill academic-slides -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/academic-slides in EvoScientist/EvoSkills) into .claude/skills/academic-slides in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Academic Slides in Codex?

Run `npx skills add EvoScientist/EvoSkills --skill academic-slides -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/academic-slides in EvoScientist/EvoSkills) into .agents/skills/academic-slides in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Academic Slides in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add EvoScientist/EvoSkills --skill academic-slides -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/academic-slides, .gemini/skills/academic-slides, .github/skills/academic-slides and .opencode/skills/academic-slides in your project.

What does Academic Slides need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Academic Slides needs the command-line tools its instructions call (pip). Our summary lists: Python 3. Its frontmatter pre-approves these tools: write_file, edit_file, read_file, think_tool, execute.

Does Academic Slides access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Its commands use pip, which can reach the network depending on how they are called. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Academic Slides safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Academic Slides use?

Academic Slides is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Academic Slides use?

About 1.8k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 7.1k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 9.3k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Academic Slides?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Academic Slides: Academic Presentations (Gabberflast/academic-pptx-skill, 1.1k stars), Xiaobei Skill Academic Paper To Ppt (xiao24bei/xiaobei-skill, 584 stars), Paper2slides (QuZhan51496/paper2anything, 469 stars) and Beamer (Noi1r/beamer-skill, 364 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Academic Slides?

EvoScientist (a GitHub organization) maintains it in EvoScientist/EvoSkills, which has 476 GitHub stars. The repository holds 16 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 30, 2026.

Source: EvoScientist/EvoSkills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.